I’m a Flickr Fan

I like using Flickr for sharing photos. There are several similar services that I’ve tried, but Flickr remains my favorite so far. It integrates well with my Android devices and it allows for easy sharing. I especially like that I can send out links to my pictures that anyone can visit, even if they don’t have their own Flickr account. Anyone can browse for publicly shared pictures. You only need to login to post pictures or join the various social groups within Flickr. In some cases you don’t even have to logon to leave comments. You can also get embed codes for pictures to add to your blog or website. I’ve heard that Facebook actually stores more photos than Flickr or any other online photo service, but I don’t think you can embed them anywhere else or browse them without logging into Facebook. Maybe you can, but I don’t know how.

By the way I’m not an employee or owner of Flickr, just a mostly satisfied customer. Yes, I am a customer. So far it’s the only online service I’ve paid for, (other than my hosting service and ISP). The so-called Flickr-Pro service works out to less than $2 a month, which is a good value to me. I frequently misplace more than $2 a month, so it doesn’t strike me as all that expensive. Actually, the main advantage is the nearly unlimited access. Free accounts have limits on the number and size of pictures you can upload but most of the features that I use are available to free accounts.

Flickr Screenshot

I’ve written about some of the things I like on Flickr in some earlier posts. In the first post, Flickr Fun, I showed how to use the annotation feature and a third-party utility called Mbedr. I also looked at several tools for adding Flickr image citations in your blogs.

Today I wanted to describe Flickr Sets. Sets are like categories or albums where you can group photos that are related in some way. You can then view all your related photos together. You can arrange the photos in any order. You can share a link to the whole set instead of sending out links to individual pictures. I have created several sets of my own pictures for special events or just for fun. My sets are all public on Flickr.

Flickr also automatically creates slideshows for your Sets. When I have pictures I want to share on Facebook, I usually make a Flickr Set and post the link on Facebook back to the Flickr slideshow. You can also get embed codes for the slideshows for your blog. This morning I scanned in a few old pictures from a home improvement project and created a set/slideshow. It tells the story of an addition we built several years ago. It’s not a very interesting story, but I think it demonstrates the possibilities.

Students and Digital Storytellers might have some fun with this 3d Rotating Image Cube. Actually it has nothing to do with Flickr, but I loaded it up with pictures from Flickr for this example. I picked six pictures I uploaded to Flickr for the DS106 Daily Create and entered the URLs into the website. I got back an embed code which I’m using below. The rotating cube is pretty awesome. You can affect the rotation effect by moving your mouse around it. It’s done in Flash though, so if you’re Flash deprived, you might not be able to see it. (I don’t have any affiliation with swfspot, I just think it’s cool.)

Thanks for all these details about Flickr. I’ve gotten addicted, and all the other options you mention, will only contribute further to my addiction. I keep pushing students to use the site, and many are starting to do so. The site is a photography teacher’s dream. Students can upload and share photos there and comment, but most of all, the teacher can get access to the students’ photos and keep organized. My niece is a high school student who has been taking photography classes for two years, and although she recommends other sites, including ones for editing, Flickr is definitely my favorite one for finding photos, organizing galleries, and uploading and organizing my own photos. Totally appreciate your post, and will bookmark for reference, because there are a lot of ideas I want to come back to. Many thanks.

Hi,
Thanks.
I learned a lot from Pedagogy First and other programs like the ones I mentioned.
I often think my ideas are boring but someone usually says something nice when I blog, so I guess its not so bad afterall.

I recently discovered Flickr and have enjoyed using it. Thanks for the details you provided on Flickr-there’s a lot I didn’t know. For my on-campus class I use Flickr to add images to my BB and certainly would for an online class as well. Your 3rd Rotating Cube is really neat. I need to save that website to create my own at some point. Thanks for sharing that with us!

Great post Norm extolling your love of Flickr and all its benefits. You really seem to be able to make the most of it. But, not wanting to pour cold water over this you understand, I, on the other hand, am the complete opposite. I can’t get into the application at all. I tried exploring the site in order to annotate an image for our POT Cert course, and just now I followed the link to your article “Flickr Fun” and looked at your instructions for annotating an image. Sorry, on both occasions, I couldn’t get past the first hurdle. You see, in terms of “select Actions over the image and click Add a note”, well, I just don’t get that option from the drop down box. I only get “view all sizes, view slideshow, view exit info”. I don’t know why it is that I have so little joy with Flickr whilst others can get so much from it.

Thanks for the great post. I’ll try and persevere as I realise that being able to get your message across in a visual fashion is increasingly important in this day and age. Helen

Hi. Thanks for the comments.
You’re right. I never noticed before, but I just looked and saw what you saw; some pictures don’t have the ‘Add a note’ option. There must be some user setting or preference for that. It also appears that you have to be logged in to get the option when its allowed. I found one example where I could add a note while logged on, but it wasn’t available on the same picture when I logged off.
Always learning new stuff. Thanks for pointing that out.

I apologize if you already know what I am about to write here, but I had a thought on the Flickr guest passes. I like those and use them quite a bit. I do know that people have shared Facebook photo albums with me, too, where I just had to click on a link and I could see the photos without logging into Facebook. I was not sure if this was maybe an option you could try if you needed more storage at any point.

Thanks for your comment. That’s interesting; I haven’t run into public Facebook photo albums. I run into a lot of links that require me to log into Facebook to view the content. It’s kind of annoying to have to do that and often it turns out not to be worthwhile after-all. It’s good to know that there are other options though, so thanks for passing that along.
I haven’t used the Flickr guest passes. I think they are for sharing photos that are private on Flickr, and so far, I haven’t found a reason to store private pictures on Flickr.

Hi Norm,
Hi Norm,
I always like your posts. Thanks for sharing this – the rotating cube is definitely eye-catching. I’ve see it used on websites to draw in the viewer. Along with music, the images almost appear to be dancing – which is a wonderful illusion for my discipline.

Thanks for commenting.
Music would be a nice add for the rotating cube. Your comment has me wondering if the cube would accept an animated gif. That would be cool. I haven’t tried it, but maybe I will.